


to guide each sprouting bean

by loosingletters



Series: light [13]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Family Bonding, Gardens & Gardening, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Homecoming, Hurt/Comfort, Music, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:46:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26414383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosingletters/pseuds/loosingletters
Summary: “Look!” Anakin shouted and pushed the plant with the soft blue flowers into Obi-Wan’s face. “It’s blooming! Master Qui-Gon’s notes said it only does that once every twelve years!”Or: Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi and Padawan Anakin Skywalker move into their new apartment and as Anakin decides to keep the greenery Qui-Gon Jinn had accumulated over the years, Obi-Wan learns to heal.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Mace Windu, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Series: light [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1739998
Comments: 33
Kudos: 555





	to guide each sprouting bean

**Author's Note:**

> Me, at 1 am: Baby Padawan Anakin Skywalker is OBSESSED with plants in this essay-

Anakin Skywalker was nine years old and he was the Padawan of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

He told himself that over and over again until the words weighed so heavy in his mind, they would sink in zero gravity. It had been almost a month now since he had become free and Obi-Wan accepted him as his Padawan, but those days already seemed so far away.

Due to the political upheavals and some other things that had flown over Anakin’s head, Obi-Wan and he had stayed with the Naboo following Qui-Gon’s funeral. Anakin’s days had been busy seeing healers and answering the questions of various government officials. Becoming a free person meant more than simply taking a bomb out of his body. He was a citizen of the Republic now, so he had a proper ID and gone through a lot of medical examinations.

They had to reset a previously broken rib that had healed wrongly and given him a lot of vaccinations. Obi-Wan hadn’t left his side even for one moment, explaining what the healers were actually doing and what all the examinations were for. Anakin hadn’t needed to ask him to stay, Obi-Wan had been able to tell how uncomfortable those visits had made him right from the start. They had reminded him too much of slave auctions, being given some extra polishing so he’d fetch the best price.

He had also thought they were kind of unnecessary. Anakin had never been sick before, but all those sicknesses he was now immune against sounded very painful so he was glad he was never going to get them.

Anakin hadn’t been bound to ever leave Tatooine, so Watto had never seen it fit to get him vaccinated. Obi-Wan had looked funnily at him after Anakin had explained how many credits he would have to have been worth for Watto start considering doing such. Even Anakin’s more detailed explanation of how much he was worth hadn’t been able to clear the situation up for Obi-Wan. If anything, he had only looked more disturbed so Anakin had dropped it.

Obi-Wan was already going through enough. His _father_ had died.

Of course, Obi-Wan called Qui-Gon his _Master_ , but Anakin knew what _Masters_ were like and Qui-Gon hadn't been one. He had been a good person and Anakin was sad he had died, but hie grief couldn’t compare to Obi-Wan’s. He tried to hide it behind high walls of pleasant warmth he sent along the Force-bond he now had with Anakin, but sometimes his control slipped.

It was slipping now as they were walking through the halls of the Jedi temple for the first time since Qui-Gon’s death.

The building was still as grand as Anakin remembered it. The echoes of so many generations rang through the halls and everywhere Anakin looked, he found somebody who was loud and vibrant. Obi-Wan had said that being able to tell people’s presence apart like that was an ability of the Force and very difficult to master.

Anakin had no idea how to shut it off. And told Obi-Wan as much, earning himself another strange look.

“These are my old rooms,” Obi-Wan said as they arrived in front of a door with a brown, wooden sign reading _Jinn & Kenobi_.

Obi-Wan unlocked the door and stepped inside. Anakin was amazed at how light the apartment was. In the middle of the room they were standing in was a cozy sitting area. To the right was a kitchen and table that could host multiple people. On the left side, Anakin saw two doors. The door the closest to him had a few blue notes attached to it while the other had orange ones.

What amazed Anakin the most, however, was the sheer unreasonable amount of plants that covered the window façade. They hanged from the ceiling, covered the windowsill – there were even trees standing in the corners. One of them had large green leaves while the other was almost entirely covered in flowers the same color as Tatooine’s sunset.

Anakin _adored_ them.

“I will begin looking through my belongings,” Obi-Wan said. “I will pack them up and then we can move to our new apartment and head to the quartermaster to start assembling your furniture.”

Obi-Wan’s voice was cold again.

It reminded Anakin of the time he had helped Kavenah sort through their wife’s belongings to make space for the new slave their Master had bought. They had tried to put on a brave face for Anakin, but their spirit had been as freezing as Obi-Wan’s. He tried to think of a way to help Obi-Wan, but he didn’t know how to. Were these the slave quarters, he’d tell Obi-Wan a story.

But Obi-Wan wouldn’t understand the tales and Anakin didn’t know any Jedi stories yet to tell Obi-Wan in turn so he simply stayed silent as Obi-Wan got to work. He disappeared into the room with the blue notes, so Anakin assumed that was his. For a few minutes Anakin settled on the sofa, then his impatience got to him and he walked around the apartment.

He found a lot of teas in the kitchen, though he didn’t recognize any of them. He hadn’t known any of the teas on Naboo either. They had been very sweet, not at all like the teas on Tatooine. Obi-Wan hadn’t liked them much either.

Anakin’s eyes darted back to the room Obi-Wan had disappeared into. He wanted to follow him. In fact, he was very sure he should. Obi-Wan had been there for all of Anakin’s check-ups so he should be there for Obi-Wan as well.

With newfound determination, Anakin marched over to the room until he could read the notes on the door. It took a bit until he was able to decipher the writing. Anakin’s written basic sucked, his reading was much better, but these notes weren’t as clear as the printed texts of the books Obi-Wan had gotten him so he could improve his skills.

_Your week to get the laundry_ , one note said in the pretty but largely illegible writing Anakin had come to associate with Obi-Wan’s penmanship.

 _Stop putting plants in my room_ , another stated. The _stop_ was underlined twice.

 _I’m spending the evening with my friends_ , Anakin read on the third.

Obi-Wan had definitely written those notes, but to whom-

 _Oh_.

He must have left them for Qui-Gon, but it didn’t make much sense that he had put them on his own door, unless this was not his room. Anakin contemplated leaving the door alone for another moment. His mother always warned him about moving too quickly, not giving anyone the chance to catch their breath.

Anakin fiddled with the hems of his sleeves, then slowly, carefully, he reached for Obi-Wan. He hadn’t quite figured this Force-bond thing out yet. It sounded similar enough to the connection he had with his mother, strained as it was now by the distance. He could still feel her, but her presence in his head was just like the remnant of an echo. It worried him, but he tried not to focus too much on it.

He didn’t want to seem ungrateful to the Jedi.

Obi-Wan’s presence reminded Anakin of the lakes on Naboo. They had driven out one day, far to the countryside where there was seemingly no damage from the Trade Federation occupation. Anakin hadn’t quite understood what they were doing there, still didn’t know the point, but Obi-Wan had smiled when Anakin had shrieked in delight when the water had washed over his feet.

Obi-Wan’s smiles, soft and kind like the early morning sunlight, were precious, this much Anakin already knew. Obi-Wan was very much like those lakes. Calm life-bringers, welcoming, and almost too good to be true.

Obi-Wan had never said ‘ _no’_ when Anakin had reached for him, but now it was as if the lake within him was frozen. It was still there, but Anakin couldn’t break through the ice.

Anakin pulled away from his mind as he opened the door.

The room inside was light, but even without the soft blue tone illuminating everything, Anakin would be able to make out all the various plants in it. There seemed to be even more in here than in the main room. They, and other strange trinkets, covered every free spot in the room. He couldn’t tell in which way they were arranged, but there appeared to be some sort of order to it that wasn’t just color arrangement.

Obi-Wan stood in the far left corner of the room, right in front of a large and dark wooden desk. It took up a lot of space and its surface was absolutely covered by flimsi. Anakin had never seen so much of it at one once. They certainly hadn’t had it on Tatooine, he had to make do with an old datapad. Personally, he thought that was much smarter as well. You could just delete whatever wrong thing you wrote down incorrectly, but on flimsi everything you erased left a mark regardless. There was no way to properly cover up your mistakes and that was dangerous.

“Obi-Wan?” Anakin asked as quietly as he could. “Are you alright?”

His Master jerked and quickly turned around. “Anakin! I didn’t- what are you doing here?”

“You felt sad,” Anakin explained, suddenly not sure if coming inside hadn’t been a bad idea. He should have listened to his Master, not broken another rule, _he didn’t want to make Obi-Wan mad-_

“Anakin, breathe,” Obi-Wan ordered and quickly rushed over to Anakin. He kneeled down in front of him and took Anakin’s smaller hands into his own, squeezing them.

“You’re here at the Jedi temple with me, not back on Tatooine,” Obi-Wan said. The sentence was a familiar one by now. Anakin didn’t know why Obi-Wan kept repeating them every time he got skittish. There was so much he didn’t know. He was terrified he wouldn’t be able to keep up with any of the other Padawans at the temple. Obi-Wan was surprised so often at what Anakin did or didn’t know and while he always attempted to cover up his lies to avoid making Anakin uncertain, Anakin had grown up surrounded by much better liars than Obi-Wan.

His mother had been the best of them.

“I’m sorry,” Anakin said, his eyes shut close.

He didn’t want to cry. He shouldn’t. It was just a waste of water. He tried to count to ten and get his breathing under control. He couldn’t afford to cry now. He had come here to help Obi-Wan and so he would. He pushed all his fears down into the deepest pit he could find, locked them in a box, threw away the key, and buried it in the sand.

Only once he managed that, he opened his eyes again, and looked straight into Obi-Wan’s worried face.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Obi-Wan reassured him quickly. “I shouldn’t have taken so much time in here. I don’t know why I even went in. This isn’t even my room.”

At this declaration, Obi-Wan let out a bitter laugh that sounded more like he was trying to cover up a sob the same way pleasure slaves attempted to hide their pain with even brighter smiles that never reached their eyes. Better smile than cry.

“It’s Qui-Gon’s, isn’t it?” Anakin asked carefully.

Obi-Wan’s expression fell, not to hurt or anger, but that emotionless façade of nothing that Anakin wished he could just brush away.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan said. “He never spent much time in here, preferring other rooms in the temple, but he tried to make his own bedroom as close to his favorite places as he could.”

Obi-Wan stood up now and looked around the room again, this time already a little more fondly. He let himself take it all in as if he were memorizing the entire structure.

“Is that why there are so many plants here?”

Obi-Wan chuckled. “Yes, my Master is- _was_ quite a fan of them. He believed them to be a physical manifestation of the living force and therefore precious. He said a lot of knowledge could be gleaned from studying them, that they could help you reach balance. Can’t say I necessarily agree, they are more trouble than they are worth.”

Anakin shot Obi-Wan a disbelieving look. How could he possibly say that about plants? They were precious, worth much more than Republic credits at least. There were plenty of moisture farmers on Tatooine who earned themselves some extra money by cultivating the few flowers that could grow on Tatooine and selling them to the rich.

You had to water them precisely, giving it not too much and not too little. There was a precision to it that Anakin could only marvel at.

“We’ll have to bring them to the greenhouse, or notify the temple board that there are plants in need of adoption,” Obi-Wan mused. “We can’t keep them all.”

Greenhouses? Anakin thought he had misheard. He made a mental note to ask Obi-Wan about them at a later time. Padmé had shown them the greenhouses at the place during her short breaks and Anakin had adored them.

“Why not?”

Obi-Wan raised a brow, studying Anakin in interest. “They’re a lot of work. I’ve never been able to keep anything but a Jakku cactus alive.”

Obi-Wan turned to the left where a row of shelves displayed a cacti collection. He raised his hand to it, then hesitated for a split second before he took a small red on away from the shelf.

He turned it in his hand a few times, then handed it to Anakin. It was a pretty thing, vibrant and didn’t have any sharp thorns like those on Tatooine. In neat handwriting it said _Jakku cactus, bought 7915 C.R.C. on a mission with Master Dooku_. Quickly doing the math, Anakin was surprised to learn that the cactus was older than him, much older.

And yet it was still so small. Anakin hoped he would grow more. He wanted to be at least as tall as Obi-Wan.

“You only need to water those once every five years,” Obi-Wan said. “My Master actually gave me an offshoot of this one to care for after I had killed everything else. He told me _‘If this one dies under your care as well, Padawan, I do not understand what they were hoping to accomplish with you on Bandomeer’_.”

Obi-Wan raised his hand to where Anakin knew his Padawan braid had been, then, after surprise flickered across his face, Obi-Wan lowered it again.

“In any case, I don’t have time to give them the care they deserve, so it would be kinder to give them to people who can.”

Anakin frowned.

“Really?” He didn’t see the point. Obi-Wan had told him plenty already about the schedule he would have, all the classes he’d have to take to catch up to the other Padawans. Anakin’s schedule was much emptier than it had ever been before when Watto had still owned him.

As a Jedi, he had an entire day off to fill with whatever activities he wanted to do. His evenings and nights were off too, his mornings as well. He only had classes from eight to two and then perhaps one in the afternoon, but Obi-Wan had already told him those were usually reserved for one on one Master and Padawan lessons.

“I can take care of them,” Anakin said and handed Obi-Wan the cactus back. “I have enough time.”

Obi-Wan put it back on the shelf in the exact same spot, marked by the lack of dust that surrounded everything else.

“Anakin, you don’t even know what all of these plants need. And you have your own lessons to focus on.”

But they were Qui-Gon’s plants. He had looked after them meticulously and even if Obi-Wan didn’t know what to do with them, they were obviously precious to him. They had belonged to his parent. It only made sense to keep them around. Perhaps that would chase the cold away. Obi-Wan had never grown up missing water, but it was sacred to Anakin in a way only a few things could be to a slave. Qui-Gon gibing all of these plants as much water as often as they needed had a meaning he couldn’t express.

But as long as he could convince Obi-Wan that he was responsible enough for it, he didn’t need to explain any of it either.

“I can do it,” he vowed.

 _I must do it_ , he told himself.

“Are you sure?”

“Please,” Anakin begged. “It’s not like I have anything for my room yet. I don’t know what to put there and I like them. I promise, the moment they start to die, I will bring them to the greenhouses.”

There had to be something about the way he said the word that made Obi-Wan smile. Anakin felt rather clueless, but he didn’t care, he had gotten Obi-Wan to smile again.

“Alright,” Obi-Wan agreed and slowly walked out of the room, stringing Anakin along by putting a hand on his shoulder and guiding him. “You can give it a shot. Our new quarters are similar enough to these that all of the greenery should fit.”

Obi-Wan walked past the sunset-colored tree, stopped, and sighed. “This is going to take a lot of trips back and forwards. I hope you’re prepared for that.”

Anakin grinned, excitement humming beneath his skin, rushing like electricity.

“It’ll be worth it!” He declared and promptly reached for the nearest plants, blue and yellow respectively, and took each under his arm, careful not to damage any of their long branches. “I’ll take good care of them!”

“That I don’t doubt,” Obi-Wan replied and, once more, smiled honestly and warmly.

It was the most beautiful thing Anakin had seen all day.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> This story is called "projecting my plant obsession onto Anakin" in my draft.  
> AND PLEASE LOOK AT THE AMAZING ART DRAWN BY [that_annoying_fool](https://archiveofourown.org/comments/347220331). ISN'T IT AMAZING!?!? I LOVE IT. I've been staring at it for hours.  
> I'd love to hear what you think!


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